by A. J. Downey
“In the safe, in my house.”
“Might have survived,” Rush said.
“Wasn’t a fireproof safe, just more anti-theft,” I said grimacing.
“Well, to be fair, you weren’t expecting the place to burn down because a greedy developer threw Molotov cocktails at it.”
“I don’t think anyone expects that shit,” Hayden said laughing.
“Your old man is rubbing off on your language choices.” Rush teased.
“Damn right he is,” Hayden said grinning.
“Trigger’s my old man,” Ashton said to me and her smile turned seven different kinds of amazing. I looked at Rush and sort of had the inkling that I was beginning to know the feeling.
“Listen, Sunshine,” he ventured and she put up a hand. “I know she’s good for it, she’s a Berling. Don’t worry about it, Bailey. We’ll get you something decent to wear and take you to the DMV to have your license replaced tomorrow. You can pay me back.”
“Oh, I can’t ask that…”
“You didn’t,” Hayden said with a wink. “We offered and it’s gonna happen. It’s really nothing.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, surprised at how much of a weight was lifted off my shoulders.
“We take care of each other, it’s what we do.” Hayden said with a wink and took a drink from her beer.
“I’ll get you two some dinner if you want to get settled somewhere.”
“What do you think? Taproom, media room, or out by the fire?”
“Anywhere but near a fire,” I said meekly.
“I’d avoid the news stations if I were you,” Hayden said taking another swig from her beer.
“Can I get one of those?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. Come on out here.” Rush took my hand and led me out into the taproom and to an empty table.
“Food will be right out,” Ashton called after us, “I’m just going to heat it up.”
“Thanks, Sunshine!”
I took the chair that Rush pulled out for me and he went behind me, back around the bar. The hiss and plink of bottle caps being removed and he was back, handing me a beer, two to a hand, and setting down a glass with a bit of bourbon in it.
I smiled, “Trying to get me drunk?” I asked downing the bourbon first.
“Trying to get lucky,” he said with a wink.
“Pretty sure that’s in the cards.” I said and he pulled an arm back and said, “Ungh! Yes!”
I laughed at him and a moment later two plates were set in front of us and silverware was handed out. I smiled and thanked Ashton, already more at ease, relaxing bit by bit with every kind gesture and every little comfort. The food was barbecue ribs, potato salad, and corn on the cob and all of it was fantastic when paired with the crisp hoppy-ness that was the beer.
“Feel better?” he asked when we were done eating.
“Much.”
“Good.”
I eyed him carefully, “What happened between the time I left the farm and you came back here?” I asked him evenly.
“Can’t tell you that, baby. That’s club business.”
“Will you get arrested?”
“Maybe… probably… but your mamma did offer to pay my legal defense.” I stared at him and blinked.
“She did not!” I burst out and leaned back in my chair laughing. His expression wiped the look clean off my face. “She totally did, didn’t she?”
“Yep.”
“Wow.”
“Think she meant it?” he asked tipping his bottle to his lips.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Some fucked up food for thought, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I mean…” I didn’t finish the thought, I mean what was there to say? I pressed fingertips into my eyes and rubbed, sitting up and leaning forward some.
“This is all so bizarre, you know?”
“Not for me, babes. This is just life. Nothing out of the ordinary about it for me. People, citizens, are shitty human beings to each other, which is why when you find you a tribe of good people, you do everything to protect that.”
“I’m a citizen though, aren’t I?”
“Eh,” he gave a one shouldered shrug. “We’re working on that.”
He winked at me and I leaned back in my seat laughing saying “Oh, fuck you!”
He waggled his eyebrows at me and said, “Every intention just as soon as we’ve had some time to digest.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” I asked.
“When was the last time you watched a movie?” he asked. I shrugged and shook my head.
“Let’s go see what they got going on in the media room then. Bring your beer, or are you almost out?”
“Almost out.”
“Want another one?”
“Um,” I thought about it a second and finally shook my head, “no, I’m okay, thanks.”
He held out a hand and I took it, letting him lead me back to a room with couches, some recliners and a large screen TV. It was empty and he led me to the couch.
“Sit,” he ordered and I dropped onto it. It was so cushy it nearly swallowed me whole, the black leather cool against my skin. He rifled through the DVD’s on the shelf and picked one.
“Gotta go with a classic,” he said and I frowned.
“What is it?”
“Big Trouble in Little China,” he answered and I made a face.
“Never heard of it.”
“The 80’s,” he said. “You had to be there.”
I laughed and he put it in and came over to the couch dropping onto it and stretching out. He patted his chest like I was a cat or something, but I didn’t complain, stretching out and laying on top of him. The movie was weird, silly, and dumb but awesome at the same time, with these god awful effects and neon lights meant to make things look all mystical. It was hysterical, and Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall looked so young.
When the monster popped up on the back of the bobtail tractor trailer at the end I threw back my head and laughed asking, “Are you kidding me!?”
“No, it’s like the best thing ever, isn’t it?”
“Oh my god, it was sooo bad! Is there more?”
“What? No, that’s the end!”
“Are you serious? There’s not a sequel?”
“Nope.”
“Oh man! There needs to be a sequel.”
“Well, there isn’t.”
“Ahhhh!” I hugged him tight and Rush chuckled.
“Come here,” he said and I crawled the few inches up his body to put my lips against his. His hands drifted down my back and cupped my lower back, just above my ass. I flicked my tongue against his bottom lip and he moaned appreciatively and let me in.
We kissed like we weren’t two grown adults, but rather like we were a pair of teenagers, discovering one another for the first time. There was something different about this time rather than any other time we’d kissed. Something deeper, more appreciative, more… fragile.
We parted naturally, breathing slowed, his caresses, heavier, more languid. I found my hands tangled in the front of his shirt, holding on for dear life. He smiled and looked at me, tracing some of my hair out of my face, tucking it gently behind my ear.
“I think I’d like to go back to your room, now.”
“I think I’d like that, too, babe.”
I got up and he turned off the TV. We went out and around to the back door, and once again he swept me up into his arms.
“Oh, well; looks like they’re going to fuck,” I heard someone say, followed by a burst of laughter as I gave them the finger behind Rush’s back as we passed.
“She’s related to Tilly alright,” I heard a grizzled, older voice, say. Some more laughter, fonder and almost reminiscent. I knew how they felt. I missed my aunt too, even though it’d been years since before she’d died since I’d last saw her. She’d been one special lady.
Rush didn’t set me down inside the door this time. Instead, he carried me up the hallway, all the
way to his bedroom. I bit my lip as he stooped and managed to get the unlocked door open without dropping me. He pushed it open and kicked it shut behind us, flinging me onto the bed. I squealed and landed in the softness of it laughing, bouncing twice.
Rush wasn’t laughing. He was stripping his tank over his head, stepping out of his slippers. He pushed the lounge pants off his hips and to the floor and snatched me by the ankle, turning me on my stomach and peeling the shorts off my legs. I gasped, and pulled his tee off from over my head, struggling a bit where it was trapped under my body.
He licked a wet line, dragging his tongue from my heel all the way up the back of one leg, nipping my left butt cheek with a little playful growl. I yipped and arched low and his hand crashed into the right, leaving a deliciously stinging handprint.
I fisted the covers and writhed a little from it and he groaned. I looked over my shoulder and clearly saw just how much he appreciated the view. His cock standing straight up and at attention, his gaze leaving a tingle of warmth where it travelled over my skin. He wrapped his hand around himself and pumped his erection through his fist. I gasped again, a sharp little exhale of breath, and my pussy gave a delighted little anticipatory throb.
I wanted that. I wanted him inside me, and I wanted it hard. I wanted him to fuck me so hard it left a permanent impression of my body in his mattress and I wasn’t afraid to beg for it. I whined and raised my ass up off the bed, an offering. An offering which he gladly took, straddling my thighs and working for the right angle. There! He pressed into me and I cried out, thrusting my hips back onto him.
Too slow, he was moving too slow, too careful. I wanted it and so I said, “That all you got, biker boy? I thought you were gonna fuck me.”
“Oh, is that how you like it?” he asked, voice tinged with amusement.
“Yeah,” I gasped. Still too slow, still too careful, his hands pressing me into the mattress, hard, on my shoulders, pinning me so I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Beg me, rich little bitch,” he said. “I want you to beg for that cock.”
“Please,” I whined, “give it to me, Rush. I need it.”
“Oh, you need it, huh? You gonna die without it?” he asked and he was being such a teasing prick.
“Yes!” I gasped as he surged forward a little harder.
“You want it hard?”
“Yes!”
“What like this?” he gave it to me a little bit harder but it wasn’t enough.
“Harder,” I demanded.
“What like this?” he pulled back and surged forward again, this time our bodies meeting with a slap.
“No, harder!” I cried.
He gave it to me for real, then. Drawing back and slamming into my body so hard I moved several inches across the bed. It felt so good. Pleasure and pain rolled into one until I didn’t know where one left off and the other began.
“Yes!” I cried, “Like that, just like that! Oh, god, fuck me!”
Oh, god, he did. He totally gave me exactly what I asked for and then some. I was right on that edge, so maddeningly close and he held me there. It was like he just needed to go in that quarter to a half an inch more to touch that spot, to scratch that itch, and then he did something no man had ever done before. He grabbed me by my upper arms and hauled back on them like they were reins and I completely understood why the French called it ‘The Little Death’ because I died a little inside it was so fantastic.
He shoved into me so tight, so hard, with the added pull that it was the most exquisite kind of torture. I screamed in the best way possible as my body exploded into light, and fire raced along every filament and nerve.
He thrust into me one last time with a shout of his own as I swear to god, flopped like a landed fish underneath the weight of his body with the intensity of my own orgasm. I felt him twitching inside my pussy and I tried three or four times to regain enough control of my motor function to tighten myself down around him.
He gasped and cried out again when I did it too, as we lay there a panting mess, skin sheened with cooling sweat.
“I don’t know what that was,” I said, pausing to draw breath, “but I liked it.”
“Oh yeah, me too. You gotta tell me any time you’re in the mood for that, baby. I don’t ever want to miss out.” He said between panting breaths.
I laughed and he laughed and it was so good.
Chapter 29
Rush
“You ready?” I looked Bailey over, the new clothes she’d bought fit her well and looked nice. I’d had to go do some shopping myself; replace my helmet, motorcycle boots and shitkickers. I could afford it with what she was paying me, even if it now felt weird taking money off her.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said and I smiled. I’d bought her a little something too, and I had to say, her motorcycle boots looked good with her country look. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, loving how her body responded, relaxing and melting into me.
“This is going to suck,” she said and I nodded.
“But then we can come back here, where it sucks but we like it.” She slapped me on my cut and pulled away, turning so that I got a fantastic view of her ass as she sashayed it out the door. I locked up my room behind us and walked out into the Kentucky summer sunshine, I missed the drier heat of the Arizona dessert but the green out here couldn’t be compared. I’d take the green of lush growing things over the brown of the desert any day of the week.
I caught up to my woman and wrapped my arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet and spinning her. She squealed, a happy sound full of laughter and I loved that. I set her on her feet and she took my hand and we walked through the club out front to my bike. I tied a spare black bandanna over my hair and put my helmet on. Bailey put hers’ on and smiled at me while I started up the bike. Sunglasses went on my face, and she got on behind me with her own mirrored lenses firmly in place. She’d gone with a pair that was an old throwback style that the cops used to wear back in the day. God, what the hell had they called them? Aviators! That’s right. They looked good on her. Fit her face and her style.
I pulled us down the drive and she hugged tightly to my back, cuddling up to me. I didn’t like that I was headed to the farm without a gun, but the cops were supposed to be there; along with Bailey’s mother, the insurance guy, Caleb, and her asshole brother. It wasn’t going to be pretty, that was for sure.
The ride was a good one, weather perfect, sun not too hot, wind warm as it washed over us. We pulled into the long gravel driveway of Bailey’s farm and I had to watch it. It was always tricky riding on uneven, shifting surfaces and this was no exception. I pulled us up in among the semi-circle of vehicles facing Bailey’s burned out house and felt pretty grim.
I didn’t want to go to jail today, but depending on what came out of junior’s mouth, I might be. This… this was bad.
The house was soot streaked and blackened from about halfway down. The top half? Spindly and black where any of the structure remained, like a burned out match stick. To think… we’d been asleep in there. Fuck, man.
I tapped Bailey’s knee to get off and she did, her movements stiff and mechanic as she surveyed the scene in front of us, too. She took off her helmet and wordlessly handed it to me as I leaned the bike onto its kickstand. I took it and hung it from one of the handlebars before I started working mine off.
“What is he doing here?” her brother demanded, looking at my cut with disdain. I tensed. I should fuckin’ let fly into his pretty boy mouth just for that disrespect alone.
“Rush is my boyfriend, not that you have anything to say about it, you creep.”
Her brother looked at her like she’d gone insane, Caleb echoing the look, but Bailey’s mom just went over to her daughter and hugged Bailey’s arm. Both of them sort of entranced by the house.
The insurance guy was already up closer, snapping photos and writing things on his clipboard. Caleb opened his mouth next,
“I would advise not telling
the insurance company anything about the Giangiulio Group or your brother’s involvement with them. You do, and the claim will be dismissed as he is partial owner of this farm.”
“He won’t be when Bailey’s lawyers get through with him, just as you will no longer be trustee.” Bailey’s mom’s tone was absolute as she turned her head to glare at Caleb.
“Bailey, I had no idea that…”
“Shut it, Philip. You had every idea, you just didn’t care. All you care about is money, your name, and your reputation.” Bailey wasn’t having any of it either. I was proud of her.
“Mom,” he tried to appeal to Trudy, which was a bad idea. She turned her head slowly and the look she gave him was sub-zero ice queen at its finest.
“You are your father’s son, Philip. I certainly didn’t raise you to be this way.”
Philip sneered then, “You didn’t raise me at all. You had the nanny for that, remember?”
“Be that as it may, as far as I am concerned, Bailey is an only child at this point.”
“I wouldn’t say anything else, if I were you Philip.” Caleb’s voice was brittle with barely suppressed anger.
“Neither one of you should say shit anyway,” I said, casually leaning against my bike. “You do, and I’m liable to take you both apart. Take a good hard look at that house, boys. Bailey and I were both inside, asleep when that started. They made sure to hit all the entrances and exits to the place. If we hadn’t parked that truck,” I turned up the drive and thrust my chin at it, “in the side barn? We’d be a couple of crispy fuckin’ critters. At some point, y’all might have to answer for that.” They blinked at me, and just finally started looking nervous as the implications sank in.
“You might want to rephrase that a little, baby,” Bailey said and I raised an eyebrow. She smiled and it wasn’t nice, “At some point they will be answering for that.”
I nodded and Philip looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel somewhere. “Are you threatening me?” he demanded.
“Why that would be illegal!” I cried.
“Consider it a promise wrapped with all the love I have left for you,” Bailey shot back and her mother patted her hand. A classic gesture of ‘that’s enough for now.’ She was right. She hadn’t even turned around but the crunching gravel could only be one person.
